Ethiopia

Ethiopia has over 120 million people and one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa over the past decade, though growth has been uneven and affected by internal conflict. The 2020 partial liberalisation of telecoms, ending Ethio Telecom's monopoly with Safaricom Ethiopia's entry, is reshaping the digital landscape.

Internet penetration remains among the lowest in this group, held back by historically state-controlled infrastructure and periodic connectivity shutdowns during periods of unrest. Addis Ababa has meaningfully better access than the rest of the country, and mobile money is still early relative to Kenya or Ghana.

Agriculture dominates the economy and is the most promising sector for AI in yield forecasting and supply chain logistics, given Ethiopia's role as a major coffee and horticulture exporter. Government digitisation efforts are focused on tax and civil registration systems.

Ethiopia does not yet have a comprehensive standalone data protection law equivalent to its peers, though a draft personal data protection bill has been under review. This creates more flexibility for early movers but less certainty for enterprise clients used to a defined compliance baseline.

Kwish sees Ethiopia as a longer-horizon market: the immediate opportunity is agri-export forecasting for coffee and horticulture cooperatives, positioned to scale once telecom liberalisation matures connectivity further.